Six Flags

Ok, so we had our first trip to Six Flags Over Georgia yesterday and had so much fun! Kaydee went when she was a baby, but was too little to ride anything, so we don't count that trip. We got there at opening and stayed until 2:30. The kids were wiped out! We rode boat rides, balloon rides, the carousel and some little fun rides. We have had vacation bible school all week where I am teaching third graders, so we took a nap and headed straight back out to church and didn't get home until 9:00! Busy busy! Having fun this week, but will be so glad when it slows back down and we can have pool days again! This has been a lovely fun filled summer and we hope to be able to continue to fun until Kaydee starts school in August. It's gone by so fast and can't believe we will have a pre-k student in the fall. Just some pics to remember this summer by:

Forever Thankful For So Much

I have been really looking forward to a few things and wanted to jot them down and thought this was the perfect place to do so. We used to make it up to Ohio at least once a year before our daughter was born. We made it up once when Kate was 5 months old to visit Mikes dying grandmother and grandfather. Thankful we did, because they both died within a week of each other, a week later. It has now been three years since our last Ohio trip and we are heading up there in June for Stephanie's wedding. Kaydee gets to be the flower girl, Gavyn, the ring bearer, and Mike will be a groomsman. I am looking forward to introducing our little Bear to the family and reintroducing the little spitfire. Kaydee rarely stops talking about 'the wedding' and apparently, there will be a pool and s'mores at this wedding. According to Kaydee. And only Kaydee. I have decided against disney world this year and am planning a mountain cabin trip for just the four of us in November. I have started researching this week and have gotten so excited to spend a few days away from the hustle bustle that every day life entails. It originated as a romantic getaway for just mike and I and I quickly decided to include the kiddos after seeing the fun they can have. More on that trip another day. Gavyn has been in speech therapy since November now and I am so impressed with his improvement. He has come such a long way from his silent expressions. He is a little grabber now and likes telling his 'thith' what his thoughts on the matter are. Our backyard renovation is well underway and almost complete. Just a couple more truckloads of gravel and some shrubs and we are done! The kids have certainly been enjoying the freedom of playing in an enclosed area instead of the driveway where we were for the last couple of years. It's certainly a sanctuary for us all. I'm looking forward to the fire pit area being completed so we can start toasting marshmallows and roasting hot dogs. There is much that I am so thankful for and I absolutely never forget to thank the almighty for the blessings he has bestowed upon us. Shalom

I'm baaaack! ... For today.

Ok, so it's almost been another year since my last post and I hate it. I created this blog to relive memories down the road and it has turned into me trying to remember what he opened in order to blog about it. My life has been remarkable over the last 10 months since my last post. Not in the sense that we have run into some ungodly large sum of money or that we have taken beautiful trips to amazing destinations. It's actually been quite ordinary in some ways which makes it completely extraordinary. I often find myself at the end of the day thinking (or at times saying out loud if someone is around to listen) 'Man, glad this day is over.' I often regret thinking that even before it is finished coming to a complete sentence. I love every day. I love that I have two beautiful children who melt down and that I was given the opportunity to go insane daily over spilled cookies, accidents on the floor, or just disruption from my favorite DVR'd prime time. This is the life I never thought I would absolutely and completely love. I always pictured being in a large home surrounded by my best friends flanking my left and right side and throwing huge parties all summer while out children played in the rolling hills we called home. This life most certainly pales in comparison. My children prove to me every day that life is a blessing and that we are blessed with love and family. Onto what's been going on. We threw Gavyn a birthday party yesterday at our home. Mike has worked tirelessly trying to get our backyard 'oasis' prepared for the event only for it to rain all day and so we were forced to throw he party inside. It turned out quite nice. The outside activities I had planned were no longer to be played, but we made do and the kids had fun, which was the main goal. All in all, it was a success. The theme was Construction Crew (seemed appropriate, given Mike's fairly recent hobby he's picked up). I personalized you hard hats, purchased Home Depot work aprons, and have you trucks out as favors. The purpose for the party? To celebrate the fact that our little baby boy is no longer a baby. He is TWO! He is such an incredibly smart and sensitive child. He gives kisses and comfort anytime he feels someone is in distress. He loves loves loves his big 'thith' even though she takes the brunt of his strength most of the time. We are already beginning potty training him as he has decided for himself that using the potty is way cleaner than peeling or pooing in a diaper. I guess his OCD he has inherited from his father pays off in the aspect. We laugh and play all day, because that is his favorite thing to do. I have the happiest child on the planet. Truly, I do. Kaydee's third birthday (yes, THREE!!!) was at a park in my parents' neighborhood and she wanted ice cream. So, we threw her an ice cream party. The kids jumped in jumpy houses, they threw water balloons at each other over war, and we had a glorious time. She is such a dainty little tomboyish princess. She loves dressing up and changing her name. Don't try to call her Kaydee when she is CLEARLY named Belle or Lola at that moment. She won't answer and will most certainly correct you where you stand. She compliments when complimenting seems necessary (she definitely gets that from her father) and will tell you she loves you when you seem to need it most. That girl makes me smile more than there are hours in the day. Probably as many times as she makes me want to pull my hair out with her shenanigans. She is as witty as her father and wants to play with her friends all day. We are completing her first dance season with a recital May 31 and I'm sure it will be darling. The girl loves to perform. On stage, at the dinner table, or on the potty. She's a performer. We also just completed her second year of preschool and will be sending Kate along to Pre-K in the fall. So hard to believe, but she is so excited to attend her big kid school. Gavyn starts preschool in the fall which means this mama has 8 hours a week all by herself. We have had a year full of excitement and fun blended with some hardships which only makes the good times even sweeter.

One year... Wait, it's been a FREAKING YEAR!?

Ok, so today marks one year since my last post! So much has happened in 365 days! Strange that I thought of logging on today! :) Kaydee started her first year of pre school at acworth united Methodist church. She attended twice a week for four hours a day. The first couple of days were rough, but by the end of the first week she was bummed about her days off. She is the youngest in her class being that the birthday cut off is September 1st and her birthday is August 29th. This made me nervous thinking she was going to be at a disadvantage, but she excelled! Her teachers always had great things to say about her (minus the occasional time out for not sharing...imagine that). Her second birthday party was a pj's & pancakes theme. We invited all of her friends over in their 'jamas and they topped silver dollar pancakes with their favorite toppings. It was such a fun idea and so easy to put together. We potty trained starting December 21st, and by Christmas she was fully potty trained. It took many accidents for days, but on the fourth day, it just clicked. ...and it was fabulous! For Gavyn's birthday, we were in Destin, FL for a soccer tournament and had cake and pizza on the beach with our soccer family. Mikey's team took home the gold and defeated top teams in the southeast. We were all so proud of him. :) We celebrated Gavyn's first birthday with a party in the park once we returned home. We reserved a pavilion at Oregon Park in Marietta and invited our best friends to join us for a cookout and fun! Gavyn started walking at thirteen months and hasn't slowed down since. He gets into everything and climbs over whatever is in his way... All boy for sure! It was so hard for me to imagine loving another child after I had loved another for so long, but we just...clicked. He is the absolute light of my life and keeps me on my toes for sure. We laugh and carry on all day, and he absolutely adores his big sister. We have had such a rainy summer...so much so that the fireworks for the fourth were postponed until the 19th and it still rained that day as well. Mike has decided to build Kaydee a big girl bed and it has turned out awesome!! I informed him of the fact that she needs to get off the floor mattress she has been sleeping on for six months and it is time to hunt for a perfect bed for our perfect little girl. He immediately found an amazing plan online for a playhouse loft bed. We have been working on it since the fourth of joy and finally completed the project today (with the exception of the stairs being done until we get a mattress so that we don't have little explorers adventuring through the slats up top). I am hoping to have it together this weekend. Can't wait for her to sleep in it for the first time. I am currently in the process of planning Kaydee's third birthday and I am just not believing how fast these last three years have flown by. I can honestly remember sitting on the stool in her nursery, seven months pregnant, watching mike arrange the furniture thinking, 'we are going to have our own little baby in here in two months'! I would stare into her crib and just imagine going in to get My happy, smiling baby each morning when she woke up and how exciting it would be to change her diapers on that very pad and using THESE little diapers on her sweet little bum and how sweet her cry would be. Looking back, I realize how silly that was because I was typically a zombie getting her out of bed because I had gotten no sleep the night before, or that I was rushing through diaper changes so that I could avoid the more-often-than-not peeing all over her cute clothes, and that her cry was much more of a screeching shrieking I'm gonna die if you don't pick me up or feed me right now cry. Although my sweet little hopes of motherhood turned out to be much different than I had expected, turns out, my life is just great and my children are absolutely perfect...for us! :) Until next time... Shalom!

long time coming...

It's been a long time since my last post...a year almost. A lot has happened since then and I started this blog so I could always remember the beginnings of what I hope to be a long lifetime of memories. So I need to play catch up. After finding out in September that we were expecting another baby, we had a lot of preparation. We found out on November 30 that we would be buying blue this go round. We were absolutely elated. Mike was set on only having two children (so to not outnumber us, lol) so I was happy to have one of each. I went out and purchased cupcakes and put blue icing inside and topped them with vanilla icing. I had Mike's dad, my parents and brothers over for the reveal. They bit into the cupcakes and saw that we were expecting a little boy. There was so much joy and I got to finally share my good news with friends. It's hard for me to keep that sort of secret. :-) Then came the naming of our new little bundle. I wanted to name him Bennett Michael, while Mike loved the name Gavin. Since there was no discussion about what our baby girl's name was going to be the first time, I let Mike pick this name. One exception... We change the spelling to match our daughter's name (Kathryn) to Gavyn. So, we had a gender and a name... Next came the room assignments. :-) Kaydee's room at the time was smaller and hardwood, so we moved her to the slightly larger room with carpet so there was more play room for her. We removed all of the sports memorabilia and painted it yellow. It was quite a task and took us a while to complete. We then had to prepare Gavyn's room. We didn't put a rush on it since we knew he would be sleeping in our room for the first couple of months. We did end up completing it before his arrival. I didn't like the nursery theme idea, so we just decided to put up some tinkers from Mike's childhood and hung some biplane pictures that a dear friend had made for us. It turned out great. Kaydee was born via c section and after the doctor told us there was an 8% chance I would deliver naturally, I opted for a repeat section. The idea of having no labor pains this time around sounded like a fabulous way to welcome our newest into the world. God had other plans... I guess he thought I needed to be reminded of how hard childbirth really is...even if it wasn't during childbirth. On March 25 @ 2:30 in the morning, I woke up to what felt like back labor pains (I had back labor with Kaydee so I remembered this feeling well). I was only 34 weeks along, so I decided to wait a bit before calling the doctor to make sure my body wasn't just practicing for the big day. After about an hour, I woke Mike up and told him what I was going through. It was different this time...it wasn't coming in waves...it was a constant throbbing pain shooting down one side of my back. I called the doctor and she instructed me to head to the hospital. By the time we got there, 19 month old in tow, it was 4am and the pain had become intolerable. I was sure I had gone into full blown labor and terrified that my baby was too small and not ready to come into this world. My thoughts were going straight to hopes that whatever doctor was on call would be capable of stopping this from happening and give me at least a couple more weeks of pregnancy so my baby boy had time to grow and mature before heading into this crazy world. After reviewing my symptoms, the nurses thought for sure that it wasn't labor and that I had either a kidney infection or kidney stones. Neither sounded good to me, but it sounded a hell of a lot better than preterm labor amd an early delivery. They did a renal u/s and concluded that it was indeed kidney stones. I stayed in the hospital for four days after staying hooked up to an IV and having fluids and Delotted (for pain) pumped into me . I went home and was taking Percocet for pain at home. My mother-in-law, Sue, came over to help me with Kaydee since Mike had already taken a lot of time off work to be with me in the hospital. She was a huge help and the pain started to come back...with a vengeance. After Sue left for an appointment, my mom came over to help me. After the pain medicine wasn't helping, and I was in more pain than ever, I asked my mom to take me to the hospital. Mike was at soccer practice and it was too much pain to wait for him to come home. Luckily, by the time I was loaded into the car, Mike was pulling into the driveway and we headed to the hospital and my parents took Kaydee. They put me on a morphine pump and by the next day, the pain had subsided and I wanted to go back home. I was just sick of being in the hospital. I was discharged and made it out just in time to go to my friend, Michelle's, 30th bday dinner. I never saw it pass, but it eventually did. I cut out all caffeine and drank LOTS of water and I hope to never go through that again. Gavyn's birthdate was set for May 4th after a lot of contemplation on mine and Mike's behalf. It was a Friday and it was also Audrey Hepburn's bday. Since Kaydee was born on Michael Jackson's bday, we thought it was important to give Gavyn some claim to fame. :-) We dropped Kaydee off with her Nana and Pop and went to meet our baby boy. Gavyn Michael was born at 12:53pm on May 4 and weighed 7 lbs 9 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long. He came into this world screaming, so we thought we had another fusspot like his sister. He immediately latched on and was an expert nurser. He turned out to be a fantastic baby who slept all the time and never cried. The next three days were spent in the hospital and even though our nurse advised us otherwise, we decided to go home since the doctor cleared mom and baby for discharge. We went home on a stormy night and the next morning Kaydee got to come home and see the new fixture in our home. Gavyn spent his first night in his own room on July 19th and is hopefully going to continue being an excellent sleeper. Gavyn 11 week stats: *Fits in most 3-6 month outfits, but can still wear 0-3 month clothes *Weighs almost 13 lbs and is 23 1/4 inches long. *Size 2 diapers *Spends about 10-20 minutes each day on his tummy and has gotten pretty good at holding his head up *Smiles often and loves to laugh *Coos and gurgles and occasionally blows bubbles. Kaydee is now 23 months old and is just a little person. I sometimes forget that she isn't even two yet and have to remind myself. :-) She absolutely adores her baby brother ('bebes' as she calls him) and is always kissing him or trying to help. I have started planning her second bday party and it makes me sad thinking about how fast these times have already gone. She does new things and learns new things every day and there are times I wish for just a moment with my itty bitty baby girl who first made me a momma. I would start to miss my big baby girl, so just a moment would do. I sometimes think that I can't wait for my children to become less dependent on me so that I can have some more mommy time, but as soon as the thought enters my mind I push it out because these times are so short lived and I want to cherish each second I have with my Littles. Kaydee starts pre school in August and I am already dreading the time I will lose with her while she is there broadening her little horizons (hehe) and gaining new friends. I want to try amd keep up with this blog as best as I can because I washer to be able to look back in five years and be able to remember each detail of my growing family. Pictures to come in the next post.

News!

So, Mike and I decided to start trying to have another baby...and it didn't take long AT ALL! :) We found out on September 4 after a home pregnancy test that we will be expecting a new little one in May 2012. :) After calculating the due date myself, it looks as though we should expect to meet Kaydee's new baby bro/sis on May 13.

After a lot of back and forth, we decided to switch doctors and hospitals, despite the fact that the doctor we had with Kaydee was wonderful. It was just easier to drive 20 minutes as opposed to 1 hour each appointment one way. So, we will see how Kennestone Hospital goes! Our first appointment is October 3 where we will get blood work done (eek) and hopefully see the first ultra sound!

In other news, Mike is going out of town for work this week for 2 days and it will be the first time without him. I have been getting nausea the past few days, so I am nervous about not having him at the end of the day to help out with Kaydee while I get my rest and get to relax. BUT-I am also excited for a girls' night...maybe we will watch Beauty & the Beast and Little Mermaid! HA!

Til next time-
SHALOM!

ONE.

Kathryn Brooke turned 1 on Monday, August 29, 2011. I made her a pancake and scrambled egg breakfast and she loved it. We met daddy for lunch and then to the park for some swinging we went. We ended the day with a nice relaxing night.

There were a few things she did on her birthday that she had done for the first time.
>>Took her sippy cup with no problems for the first time. I have been trying for the past couple of months and at the end of the day while at the park, I gave her the sippy cup after letting her watch me drink water out of it and she actually took right to it!!!
>>Took her first steps to someone other than Mike or me. She walked right to Josh with three big steps!!! :)
>>Pooped in the tub! haha! I have been waiting on this one as it seems to happen to everyone at least once. I had to grab her out & scrub the tub, lol.
>>First taste of chocolate and first nuts experience. She shared some rocky road ice cream with Nana!
A few things she has started doing this past month are:
**Takes a few steps on her own...I honestly think she would be walking by herself if she could gain the confidence. :)
**Wears 12-18 month clothes. She is our little chunky monkey.
**Will not eat from a spoon...unless it is yogurt...girlfriend can put down some yogurt! :)
**Dances to music-she prefers Sid the Science Kid and Dinosaur Train intros, but anything will do.
**Answers "yes" and "no" with a simple head shake or nod and has gotten QUITE good at doing so. She will certainly shake her head at you if she means NO! ;)
**NO MORE FORMULA! That is one expense I am glad to say we are RID of!
**Size 3 diapers-thinking of trying size 4 next, but not sure yet.


Tina came to visit with us and stayed through her birthday as did my mom's sister and my aunt Terry with her three adorable children. We spent a lot of time out at the pool and had a scare with Kaydee! EEK! All was well after it was all said and done. We got to visit many of the pools around my parents' neighborhood and had a great time!

Kaydee had a playdate with Isabella, whose birthday party was last Saturday. I cant' believe how much bigger Isabella is than Kaydee and they are only 2 days apart...Kaydee is even OLDER! haha!





The Sunday before Kaydee's birthday, we had a small get together with my dad's family (and of course, Terry & Tina). We grilled hot dogs and ate cake with K-bug! She LOVED her cake! She ate it UP with no hesitance. She typically doesn't like having dirty hands, so I was worried she wouldn't take to it well, but she dug right in. She got lots of great things and this may be the first time she actually PLAYS with her toys!
















Someone was having a really good time :)


Her cousin Audrey was a tremendous help while I was running around. She has a great future in babysitting.

We ended the day with pizza at Paisano's...our favorite pizza place. Tina and Terry left on Monday and so it started our slow week (compared to the previous week). :)

Kaydee has her "friend" birthday party planned for this Saturday, September 3 and I am so excited. We are having a few of our friends and of course-Mike's side of the family join in. We are also getting to dog-sit little Jazzie!!! :) :) :)

Shalom!